


Predecessor

by Jones_Blue (MardiGras3)



Category: Coraline (2009)
Genre: Drug Abuse, Gen, Hope you like it anyway, Mentions of Mental Illness, Might be triggering to some, hardcore jealousy, honestly be careful when reading, major agnst, mentions of abuse, slight romance, take tags away from me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-23 14:02:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20009482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MardiGras3/pseuds/Jones_Blue
Summary: After the terrible incidents that went down with the Jones family, the forsaken Pink Palace was abandoned and forgotten. A new family, the Burks, found a listing for the Pink Palace being put up for sale on a deeply-forgotten realty website. The Burkes don't know the history of the Pink Palace -  but they will become yet another family the house has taken under control.





	1. What Is This Place?

My dad never listens to me; whether we're going out for ice cream or shopping for new clothes, he always has the last word. He never lets me decide anything for myself - except when it comes to this place. 

My dad found this house on some random realty website - a real fixer-upper, he called it. He asked me if it was the kind of house I could call my home one night at the dinner table. He showed me a pale pink, victorian-era style dump of a house and told me it was my decision whether we were gonna live there or not. That's the first time he ever asked for my opinion. On anything. So, I took the one chance I had and said let's do it. 

So now, here we are standing in front of a less-than-grand staircase leading up to a gross white door, hiding our new house from view. Heaving his duffle bag over his shoulder, my dad makes his way up to the door, fumbling for the key in his pocket. I take a good look at the outside of the house - the dirty windows, the chipped paint on the porch, a rusted metal railing leading down into what I assume is the basement. My dad breaks me from my thoughts in a snap of his fingers, and my mind crashes back into reality. 

I follow dad through the cramped hallway leading to a few rooms, trying not to focus on the ripe smell of death coming from the nearest room. When we walk into the kitchen, I have to cover my nose with my shirt, gagging on the smell. The kitchen is an absolute wreck; drawers and cabinets hanging open, dishes piled high in the sink, a bowl of rotten fruit just sitting on the table, and the fridge has been unplugged from the wall and tipped on it's side in front of the back door. Dad quickly shoves me out of the room and down the hall, towards the living room. Thankfully this room is relatively clean, with only some broken glass in front of the fireplace. Dad places his bags on the sofa and goes over to the glass, and I'm about to do the same, when the hairs on my neck suddenly stand on end. 

I whirl around, sensing something behind me, and gaze wide-eyed into thin, musty air. _What the hell?_ I think to myself, looking frantically for the source of my discomfort - finding nothing. When I turn back around, dad has gotten all the glass shards off the floor and is tossing them outside one of the windows. I make a mental note to buy a trash can, before swallowing my childish paranoia. 

"Hey dad, can I see what's upstairs?" I mentally kick myself for sounding afraid, but dad doesn't seem to notice; too busy to even look up. 

"Uh, sure honey. Just come back down and help me get our stuff from the car once you're done…." his voice trails off as he searches the ground for more broken glass, and I silently step away and head upstairs. 

While the rest of the house seems two sneezes away from falling apart, the stairs don't make a sound as I go up each step; not even a tiny creak. As I make it to the top of the stairs, my eyes seem to automatically fixate onto the end of the hallway, and the almost-hidden door that sits there in the darkness. While this wouldn't normally be an issue, it gave me huge creepy vibes - it was in the middle of the day. Against my gut telling me to go back down, I slowly approach the door. Standing in front of it, I can already tell that this room is gonna be different from the other rooms up here. Gripping the doorknob with a shaky hand, I quickly fling the door open. 

The room is almost empty, save for a rickety bed and a small red and yellow ball sitting on the windowsill. I set my bag down by the door and take a good look at the room: the bed, although looking centuries old, looks to have been properly taken care of, aside from a few scrapes on the floor coming from the bases. I make my way over to the small fireplace across from the bed and pick at one of many spots where the paint is chipping off, mindlessly picking at it until the spot is the size of a golf ball. I snap myself out of it and wipe the paint off on my pants, looking over at the ball on the floor a few feet from me. 

The ball itself isn't that big - one a child could get with a quarter in those machines in restaurants and arcades - and seems to be brand new, from the way it shines. There's a small yellow star on either side of it, taking up most of the space. Picking it up, it feels light, and when I toss it at the floor, it bounces all the way to my chest. I think I'll keep this, I think to myself, walking back and putting it in my bag. Taking one final look around the room, I put my bag by the window and go back downstairs. 

_That room is mine for sure._


	2. Dead Mice and A Shocking Story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam finally learns why she had to move to the Pink Palace, and discovers her newfound phobia of mice.

My dad gave me a whole week to get comfortable in our new house. He took me shopping for bed sheets and blankets, blinds for the windows, and even a desk with a bunch of drawers on it. He said I needed to "let out my trapped creativity", whatever that means. By the end of the week, my room looked ten times better than my old room, and dad was able to get a new couch for the living room.

All day, I've been trying to figure out what my 'trapped creativity' is. Is it drawing? No, the most I can draw is a stick figure with wobbly legs and an oval head. Is it writing? Considering the only things I write are short letters to my grandma and texts to dad, then writing isn't it either.

I'm sitting in my desk chair, just about to call it quits and take a nap, when I hear a soft thud coming from outside my window. As I get closer, I can just barely make out the shape of a……

…..a dead mouse?

I jerk away from the window so hard my vision goes black for a few seconds. Why is there a dead mouse outside my window? And where did it come from? I'm tossing thoughts around in my head when I hear another sound- this time, it sounded heavier. Looking back out, I see a small orange and grey cat sneaking over to the dead mouse, whiskers twitching and eyes wide, as if it's expecting the mouse to come back to life. It pounces on top of it, sinks it's teeth into the small animal, then dashes for the edge of the roof and jumps off. I can only stand and stare at where the cat disappeared, still shocked at seeing the dead body of a mouse for the first time. They say they don't look much different from science class, but they look extremely different- for one, the fur is more ragged and gross.

I shake my head, realizing I've been standing still for 15 minutes, and I head back over to my desk, determined to find my creativity. But the second I sit down, I hear dad calling for me.

"Sam, come help with this fridge!" His voice is strained, and I assume he's in the middle of moving the new fridge to it's place. I jog down the stairs and meet him in the kitchen.

"What do you need me to do?" I look around at his tools, which are strewn about everywhere, expecting him to get me to hand him one of the wrenches or screwdrivers.

My dad is full of surprises this week, as he doesn't ask me for either.

"I need you to decide where this fridge is gonna go. It doesn't fit where the old one was." He nods to the back door, and I can see he tossed the old fridge down the porch and into the yard, probably after it had pissed him off. I turn back to see where the fridge could go, and decide it would look best right next to the back door.

"I think it would fit beside the door. And there's already an outlet there." I point the the bare wall, and he nods as he moves it, albeit very slowly, to the back wall.

He quickly thanks me before rummaging through his toolbox, and I take that as my cue to leave him to his work. I start to head upstairs, one foot on the step, when I catch a streak of orange from the corner of my eye. I head to the front door and step out on the porch, and the sounds of loud yowling ring in my ears. I head to the source while ignoring the sound and soon I find two cats wrestling in the wet grass behind the house. One of them, the orange and grey cat from earlier, is fighting another, pure black cat, over the dead mouse. I take a small step forward, and the loud snap of a twig under my foot brings the fighting to a swift halt. Both cats are staring at me now with wide and unblinking eyes. The orange and grey cat looks down at the black one and jumps away, quickly taking the mouse and sprinting off with it. I watch as the black cat, now empty of a meal, raced after the orange cat - but not before growling at me and showing me it's claws.

_____________________________________

Dad and I sit down at the table, the heavy smell of melted cheese and hot dogs rising from the huge bowl in the center of the table. Dad takes a serving spoon from one of the plastic boxes on the counter and piles his plate high with the mac'n'cheese/hotdog concoction. He gives me the same amount before attacking his food like a starving wolf. I eat carefully, studying his face and waiting for him to say something.

"So, dad…." My voice catches in my throat, but I'm not really sure why. He looks at me questioningly, still chewing.

"What is it hon?" He says through a mouthful of mac n' cheese. I hold back laughter.

"Why did we move from our other house?"

The second I finish my sentence, I see his shoulder's tense up. He stares off into space for a minute, thinking, and finally sighs.

"Sam, I know that you don't agree with us moving. I knew when I first asked about this place.." He trails off, looking down at his plate.

"Your mom first bought that house after we started dating, back in our senior year of college. She was a photography major, while I was still figuring out whether I liked history or english." He takes a quick pause, a small laugh echoing around the room.

"Your mom always had ambitions to be the best photographer. She used to go out late at night, taking pictures of things other people thought of as trivial, or unimportant; she took pictures of old and broken street signs, abandoned warehouses with graffiti hiding the brick underneath. She saw these things as lost souls, and she wanted to show others how we could learn from them. I always warned her to stay away from those places, as street thugs called those places their home. But, she insisted. We soon moved in, made the place our home, and just before the day of graduation…..she took me to Stella's - her favourite pizza place- and told me she was pregnant. For the next few months, I took on several jobs around the city, earning enough to live comfortably. You were born the day after we were able to buy the house. Your mother celebrated the entire day, even though she was exhausted." He gave me a sad smile.

"What happened?" He had never told me this story, always too busy to make the time. I want to know who my mother was. He took a deep breath before continuing.

".....after about five months you were born, we heard from the doctor that something was wrong - she had developed an unusual growth over the past month - and the doctor advised her to stay at home, which meant putting her photography on hold so she could get better ...but she never did get better. The growth got so big she had to go into surgery to remove it. And it was good for about two weeks, until it came back. This growth removal kept going back and forth, going on for months. When you were about a year old, the growth had spread to other parts of her brain - mainly to the area in charge of memory. She…...um, she soon…..couldn't even remember that you were her child." He looked up at me with the saddest eyes, like he wanted to rewind time and make her remember me. I put my hand on his, and he gave me a weak smile in return.

"Sam…..she soon got too bad to even leave the hospital. She was there for three months, and the doctors tried everything they could to make her better, but the growth kept coming back. She died in March, and since all of our money went to you to keep you happy and healthy, I couldn't afford to have a proper funeral. Do you remember the glade, behind your uncle's summer cabin in the mountains?" 

I nod, remembering the countless summers spent swimming in the mountain lake with my cousins.

"Good. Now, there was this small glade about a half mile behind the cabin, where you used to play tag with your cousins. When your mother died, your uncle agreed to bury her underneath the young dogwood tree back there, so we could visit her anytime we wanted to." He takes a quick deep breath, squeezing his eyes shut for a second.

"The reason we left was because it reminded me of your mother, and how we made hundreds of memories there. I couldn't bear to wake up to an empty bed, Sam. I'm sorry you had to leave your school and friends behind, but it was crushing me to stay in that house…"

I get up and hug him tightly, and he does the same. I've never seen this side of my dad before, even when we found out my grandmom passed away last summer. We stayed like that for a bit, just hugging each other, before he pulled away and patted me on my shoulders.

"Anyways, you need to get to bed. We have a big day tomorrow, so you need as much sleep as possible." He got up and started putting dishes in the sink, so I took that as my cue to head upstairs. After saying a quick goodnight, I go up and shut myself in my room, absorbing all that information. Mom was a photographer? I didn't even know she went to college!

I start to head to bed when I feel a furry...thing, runs across my foot. I yell and jump back, looking down as the creature runs head first into the wall. It's another mouse, with matted fur and a short tail. I reach down to get it when the calico cat, from earlier today, runs from under my bed and scoops it up in it's mouth like a trophy. It glares at me with slitted green eyes before dashing up the fireplace.

_I hate mice. ___

**Author's Note:**

> This first chapter is supposed to be a little bit vague compared to the tags. The serious topics listed in the tags will become apparent and important in later chapters. You have been kindly warned! :3


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